Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin - Softcover

'Thoroughgoing and engrossing. Modern Berlin was the hub of commerce, centre stage for politics, mecca for high culture, and a haven for extravagance and eccentricity. Alexandra Richie controls all this material superbly.' Peter Gay 'A wide-ranging book, full of fascinating detail, and compellingly written.' Robert Conquest 'A unique combination of an analysis of Berlin with a study of the entire history of Germany and of Germany's problems of national and linguistic self-definition.' Harold James

A radical and exciting history of a city -- its culture, its people and its politics -- that refreshes our image of Europe's past and of the writing of history itself. In Berlin, history is tangible. The sense of the past -- of Europe, of Germany, and of the 20th-century's myths, depravities, idealism and horror -- hangs in the air around the old Hinterhofs and deserted railway stations. No other city has played such a part in the tides of 20th-century European affairs. 'Faust's Metropolis' follows the rich and inspiring history of this city: from the revolutionary fervour of its teeming slums, the insufferable pomp of Imperial Berlin, and the frantic modernism of Weimar to the brutality of the Nazis and the symbolic defeat of Communism as the Wall came down. Writing superbly of Berlin's role as a crucible of change, Alexandra Richie reveals herself as an extraordinary new talent.